


War Becomes Him

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2020 [23]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27272485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: He who was once the Doctor is the Doctor no longer. The Time War has changed him beyond all recognition. Even to those who he once scorned as extremists.
Series: Fictober 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952200
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	War Becomes Him

An old man sighed in exhaustion as he ran out of corridor to run down. His attempts to sabotage the flagship of this particular Dalek fleet had not gone to plan, and it had cost his entire squad all of their regenerations, but even his escape was now cut off. Perhaps this was the end.

“Exterminate!”

“Then do it,” he said, not even bothering to turn around and face his attacker. He heard the Dalek weapon fire, but felt no impact, no agony, no death coming for him. Instead he heard a wheezing, groaning sound behind him, and the Dalek weapon’s blast fizzle away to nothing. Before he had a chance to turn around, the door of the capsule opened and he stepped into a room, a porch that was entirely too pristine to belong to a war TARDIS. The door closed behind him and the sounds of the burning Dalek ship were cut off, replaced by graceful silence. In front of him was an ornate door, but when he tried the handle, it was locked. He tried his sonic screwdriver, but to no avail. So instead, he waited.

He did not have to wait long, however, as soon the sounds of the TARDIS in flight stopped and the door to the outside slid open again. In front of him, barely a few feet beyond the door, was a familiar blue box, just where he had left her on the planet below before infiltrating the fleet. He stepped out towards her, but when he was halfway between the two timeships, he heard the ornate door unlock and turned to greet the occupant.

He watched the pilot step out of their TARDIS, ready to thank them. When he saw who it was, however, any thought of gratitude fled from his mind. His eyebrows furrowed and his jaw clenched at the sight of his saviour’s permanently insufferable expression. “Braxiatel.”

“Well met, Doctor,” he said with his usual inappropriate cheer.

“Don’t call me that,” the old man said.

“Ah, yes,” Braxiatel stroked his chin in mock thought. “I recall now that you’ve decided you don’t like your old name anymore.”

“You lost the right to call any of my selves that already,” the old man growled at his ostensible ally. “After what you did to Ace.”

“Ah, yes, Ace,” Braxiatel looked almost regretful at the name. If the old man didn’t know better he’d almost think it was genuine. Not that he would have cared.

“You don’t have the right to say her name either,” the old man refused to believe Braxiatel’s remorse.

“Oh?” finally giving up on the feigned civility, Braxiatel raised an eyebrow in a decidedly unfriendly manner. “Is there anyone’s name I may speak? Shall you deign to allow me to name my allies? Do you think you can dictate what I can do?”

The old man reeled back in surprise, but soon countered with cutting sarcasm of his own. “Why, Braxiatel, usually it’s me infuriated with you, and yet I don’t even need to try to get under your skin. Has running away from the war really made you so easy to rile?”

“Do you think you are one to talk?” Braxiatel demanded. “You, who refused to be involved in this dreadful war for so long while I did whatever I could to prevent it from happening?”

“And what a fine job you did,” the old man responded, irony dripping from every word.

“Perhaps if you and all the others had stopped trying to judge and prevent me from doing what needed to be done, I would have ended this war before it had even begun!” Braxiatel defended himself. “If you had let me do what was necessary-”

“But you didn’t,” the old man fixed him with a steely glare. “You didn’t do what was necessary to stop the war. You did what you always do, and set yourself at the top, to the expense of everyone around you. Ace, Leela, Bernice, all my friends who suffered for your own profit!”

It was Braxiatel’s turn to growl. “They were my friends too.”

The old man scoffed.

“And how, precisely, is it different to what you do now?” Braxiatel challenged. “Oh, I’m sure you think I haven’t seen it, but I know what it is you do in the battles you win. You sacrifice whoever you need to. Is it okay to do that to people who you don’t know? It’s only the people you care about who are important enough to not be pawns?”

“How dare you judge me?” the old man demanded. “You have always done the exact same, and you somehow act as if you have the right to pass judgement?”

“Because I knew that you would not!” Braxiatel burst out. Before the old man could respond with another cut at his character, Braxiatel took a deep breath and bowed his head, closing his eyes. “I have always done what is necessary to protect as many as I can. Sometimes...sometimes that means the people I care about suffer. Sometimes I don’t get it quite right.”

“Save it, Braxiatel,” the old man sneered. “I’ve heard you try to justify your crimes too much to listen to it now.”

“But I always knew that you were there!” Braxiatel insisted. “That you would do what was good, do the good that I could not, and that I would do the lesser evil that you would not. You did what was right, and I did whatever else needed to be done. But now…” he looked straight at the old man, his eyes flicking past the torn clothes and the bloodstains. “Now I have no idea what you will do. I should be the last person to criticise your methods, and yet here we are.”

Braxiatel looked deep into the old man’s blazing eyes. “Who are you, Doctor? Who has this war made you into?”

Silence fell between them, broken only by the wind howling across the dust.

“Keep running away, Braxiatel,” the old man turned away towards the blue box. “I’ve nothing more to say to you.”

Braxiatel sighed. “And nothing more to hear, it seems.”

The old man did not look back as he opened the door to his TARDIS and closed it behind him.


End file.
